Bose SoundLink Flex review

The Bose speaker SoundLink Flex is made to be used outside, so its design and construction reflect that. Bose says that its grille is made of steel and powder-coated, which is true. It will get a few scuffs if you drop it on the ground. Overall, the speaker feels solid and doesn’t have any strange shapes or extra parts that could get caught on your clothes or plants while hiking.

Bose says this Bluetooth speaker floats, but I don’t think that’s true. You could quickly get it back if you dropped it in a lake or accidentally kicked it into a pool, but you couldn’t play music in the deep end like you can with the UE WONDERBOOM 2. But surviving a quick dip in water is useful for this speaker because it gets dirty very quickly.

It gets smudges and fingerprints, and dust can get in through the front grille. You can get rid of all of these things with a quick dip. But it’s hard to get sand or other things that don’t dissolve out from behind the grille. I can still hear a little bit of sand when I shake this unit. Even though it is well made, the Bose SoundLink Flex only weighs 589g, which might be too much for mountaineering.

It won’t get in the way of easy hikes or trips to the beach, though. On the speaker’s right side is a carrying strap that lets you attach it to a backpack, jacket, and many other things. You will need to bring your own clip or carabiner, though. It can also turn around and face backward, which makes the sound quieter.

This problem wouldn’t happen if the clip was built in, but you’d lose some flexibility. If the loop breaks or wears out, you can’t fix it yourself. On the left side, you’ll find the USB-C charging port.

Bose SoundLink Flex review: Design

The Bose is slim, and at 600g, it’s light enough that you can carry it with one hand or put it in a bag. The fabric loop can be hooked around your finger or attached to a carabiner. It’s portable in every way, but we find that the JBL Flip 6, which is also 50g lighter and has a cylindrical shape, is easier to carry and fit into small spaces.

The speaker has a soft-touch silicone exterior and a powder-coated steel grille on the front. It comes in four colors: Black, White Smoke, Stone Blue, and a limited edition Carmine Red, which our review sample has. It’s made to be tough enough to handle bumps and falls in the great outdoors, and Bose says the finish won’t peel or flake and is resistant to rust and UV light.

You can also put the Bose speaker anywhere inside and it won’t look out of place. We used it in the kitchen, home office, and even the bath. With an IP67 rating, the SoundLink Flex is completely dustproof and waterproof, so we don’t mind if it gets splashed with water. The finish can also be wiped clean.

It will even play if you put it in water. We put our sample in water and it kept playing, though the sound was muffled. It also floats, and the speaker works just fine after it has been dried out. The Flex looks and feels more high-end than the JBL speker and Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 2 speakers, which are made to get dirty. You can buy this speaker from its official website.

Bose SoundLink Flex review: Features

The SoundLink Flex has Bluetooth 4.2, which isn’t exactly cutting edge when similar speakers from JBL now have Bluetooth 5.1. Still, it only takes a few seconds to connect to a smartphone, and it automatically reconnects to the last device it was connected to. You can also connect two devices to the speaker at the same time.

We did this with both an Apple iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. You also get wireless range of up to 9m/30ft, according to the company. The power button, the volume up and down buttons, the Bluetooth pairing button, and the multi-function button that pauses, plays, skips, and takes calls are all easy to use as soon as you take the speaker out of the box.

You can also turn on your phone’s voice assistant by pressing and holding the multi-function button. When you download the Bose Connect app, you get a few more features, the most useful of which is knowing how much battery life you have left. When the battery is full, the LED next to the power button stays solid white.

When the battery is low, it glows red. But the device doesn’t show how much battery life is left, so it’s worth getting the app just to keep track of that. The app also lets you set the auto-off timer, see the two devices you’re connected to, control music playback, and, most importantly, turn off the annoying voice prompts if you don’t need them.

Bose SoundLink Flex review: Connectivity

The on-board DAC’s native resolution is unknown, but our tests have shown that it can handle some TIDAL Masters files, but not the biggest and highest-resolution ones. The Flex is happy to take a 24bit/192kHz file, but it will be scaled down before you can listen to it.

Wireless connectivity through Bluetooth 4.2 probably isn’t helping either, but at least the Flex pairs quickly and seems to be rock solid. It can connect to two devices at once, which is helpful. When it comes to controlling the SoundLink Flex, you have a lot of options. When the Bose is in the “landscape” position, there are a few physical controls along the top edge of the chassis.

These controls cover “power on/off,” “volume up/down,” “Bluetooth pairing,” “play/pause,” and “skip forwards/backwards.” Siri or Google Assistant can be used to control the speaker with your voice, and the Bose Connect app gives you some control, but not quite enough.

Bose SoundLink Flex review: Sound Performance

Bose says that the SoundLink Flex can make enough sound to fill a living room. Based on my tests, I’d say it would have to be a fairly small living room. It can only put out so much sound; just to be clear, this is a mono speaker. The important thing is that it makes more bass than you think it can. Also, it doesn’t distort at higher volumes and has good clarity in the treble and midrange, with an overall well-balanced sound that’s only slightly bass-forward.

You’ll be impressed immediately by how much sound it makes and how good that sound is. But it can’t escape the fact that it’s a small speaker. The soundstage can only get so wide, and songs with many instruments playing simultaneously can make it sound a little crowded. Some frequencies are turned down, especially at higher volumes, to keep the sound from getting distorted.

Bose SoundLink Flex review: Battery Life

Bose’s SoundLink Micro, which came out at the end of 2017 and is due for an update, also sounds great for how small it is. The Flex looks and feels like it comes from the same family, but it is about twice as big and weighs 1.3 pounds (0.59 kg). It also sounds much better than the Micro and lasts longer on a charge.

Now that the Micro costs $119, the Flex, which costs only $30 more, is clearly the better deal. Even though most new Bluetooth speakers use Bluetooth 5.1, the Flex uses the older Bluetooth 4.2 instead. Bose told us that upgrading from Bluetooth 4.2 to Bluetooth 5.1 wouldn’t be a big deal for its customers because the changes wouldn’t affect how well the Flex worked with A2DP.

And since there wasn’t much to gain from upgrading to 5.1, the company chose to use the same chip it had used in the SoundLink Micro, which had been “thoroughly field-tested and updated over time to make sure it worked well with other devices and was reliable.”

Bose SoundLink Flex review: Final words

The Bose SoundLink Flex is good for listening to music. This small speaker can play voices and lead instruments with detail and clarity right out of the box, making it good for many different types of music. It can also get loud enough to fill a room of average size with sound. But it doesn’t have any tools to change how it sounds, so you can’t. It doesn’t get as loud as bigger speakers on the market, and it doesn’t make as much low-bass sound either.